Darryl
Masculine · “From Airelle”
Darryl is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 92,285 boys against 1,134 girls since 1880. See Darryl as a girl name
Darryl is the only one of the four spellings with a y, and the y is doing what an e does everywhere else. The final syllable of this name is a neutral vowel plus an l, and English writes that with an e, an a, an o or a y depending on nothing at all; the record holds all four.
How old is the name Darryl?
Darryl first appears in US birth records in 1913 — 112 years ago. The typical Darryl alive today was born around 1964, making them about 61 years old. About 75,500 people named Darryl are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Darryl most popular?
Darryl peaked in 1965, reaching #68 nationally. Today it ranks #2108, 2,040 places below that high. See the whole 1965 chart.
Darryl appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Airelle to Darryl
The story of Darryl
The most consequential American to carry the name got his start writing for a dog. Darryl Zanuck sold stories to Hollywood in his early twenties and wrote a run of films for a German shepherd who was one of the biggest box-office draws of the silent era; on the strength of that he became a studio executive at twenty-six, ran production at Warner Brothers, left after a dispute about pay cuts, and founded what became Twentieth Century Fox. He personally pushed through a series of films about subjects the industry considered unsellable. The whole career started with scripts for an animal who could not read them.
Meaning
From Airelle
A Norman surname taken from a place in Calvados, with the French preposition fused onto the front. The place is named after a berry. Nothing in the name describes a person, and none of the four spellings is closer to the original than any other.
How the name formed
- Airelle
- Darrell
- Darryl
Pronouncing Darryl
DARE-ul
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The second is reduced to nothing, which is why Darryl, Darrell, Daryl and Darrel are all said identically and all four are in the records.
Nicknames for Darryl
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1913
- Most boys named
- 19624,969 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #68reached in 1965
- Change vs 2023
- −22.5%69 in 2025, from 89
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Darryl in other languages
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, California.
Darryls among us
people named Darryl are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 24,755 born in 2025 was named Darryl
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Darryl
- #2108
- Darryl on the 2025 chart
- #747
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Darryl went to 69 boys in 2025, but Daryl is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 182, which makes it the 747th most-given boys’ name of the year — 1,361 places above the chart.
- Daryl113
- Darryl69
About 1 boy in 9,385 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 24,755 for Darryl itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Jimmie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Darryl's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jimmie climbed just as high around 1934, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jimmie's path sketches the road Darryl is walking now.
Darryl sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Darryl is headed
Darryl should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Darryl beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Darryl in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The spoken name is completely established and never needs repeating.
- It works for a child of either sex, which the record confirms.
- The Norman history behind it is real and locatable.
- Four spellings circulate together and none of them is standard, so spelling it out is permanent.
- The record carries it for girls in small numbers as well.
- It is strongly dated to the middle of the last century in American ears.
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What they receive
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Darryl
Masculine · #2108 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Darryls are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 75,500 people named Darryl are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Darryl?
- Darryl is one of 2 recorded spellings. Daryl is the more common one — 113 births in 2025 against 69 for Darryl.
- How popular is the name Darryl in 2025?
- Darryl ranks #2108 among US boy names in 2025, with 69 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Darryl?
- About 1 in every 24,755 US boys born in 2025 was named Darryl — 69 in all.
- Will my child share the name Darryl with classmates?
- Darryl will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Darryl
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Armoni#2108 · Ansh#2108 · Khyrie#2108 · Ayven#2108 · Artist#2108 · Aero#2108 · Cai#2108 · Sameer#2108
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Darryl? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Darryl and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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